Why I Helped Start Faithful Democrats

 When I was growing up in Evanston, Illinois, my mother wasn’t particularly religious.  She was a lapsed Catholic who didn’t attend Mass very often. She was deeply spiritual, though.  And it showed in who she was.

Her smile beamed, her laugh carried. She cooked a half-dozen trays of lasagna for the homeless every year and routinely allowed friends in need to stay at our house. She made her living as an obstetrician-gynecologist, bringing life into the world and healing the sick. At her best, my mother was a conduit of God’s love.

Colon cancer took Mom’s life just before Christmas many years ago. I was seventeen; my brother Josh was fifteen; my brother Gabe was ten.

The following year I decided on a whim to attend a Christmas Eve service. I’m not quite sure why I went.  Maybe I just wanted Mom’s light back.

That night my Christian journey began. I remember an image in my mind: a silhouette of Jesus with a white, burning light inside him, and a silhouette of myself standing next to him with that same burning light inside me. I barely recall what the preacher said that night. All I really remember is the burning. About year later I was baptized, affirming my trust in Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

Before then, I had always been a Democrat, because in Evanston, that’s what one is.  But I had never really cared much about politics.  Around the time I was baptized, that started to change.

One summer I worked in Chicago for the state agency that was responsible for kids who had been taken from their parents because of abuse or neglect. My job was to administer a program that gave housing vouchers to families that were ready to be reunited, but lacked a decent place to live. The number of available vouchers was miniscule compared to the number of eligible families. At twenty years old, I had to decide which families would get a voucher and which ones would not.

Once, after making a particularly difficult decision, I left my cubicle, hid in the bathroom, and wept. A decent society, I thought — a society with respect for the dignity of every person God created — would never force a family into that situation.  I began to understand that the effort to eradicate what Pope John Paul II called “structural sin” was the very work of Christ.

Because of experiences like that one, I decided to dedicate my career to justice and the common good.  And I decided to do it in Christ.  That, ultimately, is why I co-founded FaithfulDemocrats.com.  It’s my way of following Paul’s instruction to be part of Christ’s hands and feet right here on earth (1 Corinthians 12).

I don’t believe that good Christians have to be Democrats.  And I understand fully well that political parties are very much of man, not of God.  But in a fallen world, where pretty much any effort to do good is marred by the fact that all humans fall short, we just have to do the best we can.  And my faith has led me here.  I hope you enjoy this website, and I hope it helps you put your faith to work for your God and your neighbors.